


I Know This Song

by Tseecka



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied Torture, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Whump, torture aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:43:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Will is found after being captured, tortured, and left for dead, Hannibal is the one to care for him. Will feels safe with him; Hannibal seems to understand. </p>
<p>For Thranduils_Bossy_Elk--my first time writing whump, I hope you like it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know This Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thranduils_Bossy_Elk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thranduils_Bossy_Elk/gifts).



His first instinct, when he comes to, is rage. It’s a seething hatred, an untempered indignation, and he is ready to explode outward. Too soon, however--before he can act, or even think about acting--the tension strung tight through his body ignites a white-hot agony, and the rage is obliterated.  It begins in his wrists and races like wildfire through his arms, across his shoulders and down his spine, setting every nerve aflame.

He collapses on his side on a hard, cold cement floor, curling into the fetal position and letting out an animalistic noise somewhere between a howl and a shriek, laid low before he can even move from the position he found himself in upon waking. His senses catch up with his instinct just in time for him to pass out again; he smells blood in the air.

*******

“Will! William!”

His limbs are on fire. The floor is freezing and hard. There is a warm hand cradling his cheek, patting softly at the flesh that feels too heated, and another pressing gently against his brow. A thumb caresses his eyelid, pries it upwards gingerly, and he flinches away as light suddenly assaults his cornea. The hand releases, settles more gently on his forehead, and the thumb smooths his eyebrow as a mouth somewhere--not above him, in front, perhaps, and he realizes he is sitting on the floor with cold cement at his back--repeats a soft sussurrus, quieting him, calming him. The voice is familiar, its mild and musical candence falling on his ears, and he stills. The thumb brushes over his lashes, pries open his lid, and his time he allows it. His iris adjusts to the flood of light, and he can make out Dr. Lecter’s face hovering in front of him.

“Dr….Lecter?” he speaks. His own voice is raw and rough, and he sees the doctor flinch--does he know the sound, recognize the effects of prolonged screaming on human vocal chords? Perhaps he does. He coughs, tries to clear his throat. His mouth feels cottony, gummy, too dry and sticky, his tongue too large and unwieldy for his mouth. He moves it around, tries to bring feeling back into it like waking up a limb that’s fallen asleep, and freezes when it encounters empty space where there should be a molar, two. He prods at it experimentally, and his spine goes rigid with pain. His tongue pulls away, but not quickly enough to avoid the sudden wash of metal that floods his mouth. He turns to the side, away from Hannibal, and spits. Blood paints the floor in a vivid red spatter, and he closes his eye again.

There is the sound of movement, rustling fabric, the shift of a body before him, and then there is softness at his lips. Silk, freshly and expertly laundered, smelling like nothing but clean--no harsh, cheap perfumes or lingering traces of over-applied cologne. The fabric mops the blood from his lips, and he parts them slightly; it moves down and over his chin, swiping it away. He opens his eyes; the light, while bright, does not burn with the unexpectedness of it, and he sees Hannibal refolding the pocket square. There is a bright crimson stain on one corner of the pale orange fabric, and a smear of the same colour along one crisply folded edge.

He tries again to speak, his mouth waking and his tongue more willing to obey his commands. “What are you doing here?”

Hannibal offers a wry twist of his mouth that looks like it could be a smile, if he were forcing it through a thick fog of pain. Will thinks he’s seen that same expression in a mirror before, more times than he cares to count.

_‘Although you may not feel like it, I need you to smile.’_

The expression is wrong on Hannibal, and Will reaches up to wipe it away. That’s when he sees the mangled mess of skin and flesh that is his right hand, and he pauses, gut roiling as the pain flares anew and he tries to come to terms with his own mutilated flesh. Compared to a murder scene, to some of the grisly things he’s witnessed, it isn’t that bad--deep cuts, scrapes on his knuckles, a few places where his skin appears to have been flayed in inch long increments--but the knowledge that it is his own, that that is _him_ , sits like a stone in his stomach. His gut clenches, but nothing comes up.

“Looking for you,” Hannibal says softly, gently raising his own hand to rest beneath Will’s. He doesn’t touch any of the injuries, just gently urges Will’s hand down with the movement of his own, asking without words for Will to rest. Despite his care, the gentle touch lights a different kind of fire in Will’s skin. Hannibal gestures to someone Will can’t see, who brings him what appears to be a first aid kit. He begins to bandage Will’s hand--there is blood seeping out from the places where he’s been flayed, and a deep cut between his thumb and index finger that is steadily weeping thick drops of the crimson stuff--but Will can’t look away from Hannibal’s face.

******

Will tries to explain what had happened to Hannibal, tries to walk through the hours that he can remember to explain why he was in the warehouse, what he had been doing there, but there are gaps that he can’t explain. He can remember feeling like there was something off about the case, remembers that stirring sense of wrongness that rang in his ears every time Jack spoke to him about their suspects, about the movements of their team closing in on the killer. He remembers making the decision to return to the crime scene, scoured clean and blank, _tabula rasa_ , trying to reach for that feeling and follow the bread crumbs of emotion through to their source. Hannibal turns, whispers something to a stern looking Jack standing with arms folded and a set to his jaw behind him--it’s unmistakeably stern, but Will can feel the sympathy and the regret, and apology and anger, and it all feels wrong coming off of Jack--and Jack pulls out his cell and walks a few feet away.

He orders a crew to the scene. They had erased everything there was before Will had arrived; perhaps his captor? Assailant? ...Torturer? had left something behind. They will return and report it clean, no evidence to show that anyone but Will was ever there. Will won’t bother to make the argument that he very well didn’t slice off strips of his own fucking skin for shits and giggles; it is either obvious, or dangerously close to something conceivably real, and he won’t waste time with either. He’s becoming more unhinged lately, the blank spots in his memory growing bigger, and just because he doesn’t _think_ he’d do something like that...well, there’s no need to make Hannibal worry.

Jack returns, takes up his position again as Hannibal continues to tend to Will and talk to him in a low voice. He’s asking questions, and Will is answering, but it’s all sort of surface, reactionary, reflex. It’s difficult to concentrate on listening, on words and thoughts and memory, when everything hurts. Hannibal keeps urging him to drink water, and it hurts going down; he warns Will before applying the disinfectant, but it still stings like a bitch in the open wounds, and there are so many. So, so many.

The thing is, Will doesn’t remember anything of use, from while he was captured. He doesn’t even really know why it happened. He has no memory of interrogation--Hannibal, right now, is interrogating him more than anyone else has that he can remember, and his questions are gently leading, idle-sounding, innocuous things. Will thinks he would remember someone asking him questions, looking for answers; he’s not much, he’s never had any kind of intensive training, he’s pretty sure that the minute the first incision was made over his ribs (there are thirteen, total, some of them almost deep enough to reveal bone, and he’s not sure if the number is significant) he would have given up anything they wanted to know. He remembers a voice, but it’s hazy, like the sound of someone speaking while your head is underwater, and he can’t give any real clues. It was a man, he supposes, he remembers that much, but that’s not much to go on.

And their serial killer is a woman, so, that’s a nail in the coffin of that theory.

Finally, his voice goes well and truly hoarse, and all the water and coaxing in the world isn’t going to get another sound out of his lungs. It could, he supposed--it takes a mighty effort to keep from screaming aloud when the needle goes into a segment of his flesh that isn’t quite entirely anaesthetized yet--but he is so tired, and the drip they’ve gently inserted into his arm with pain-numbing drugs isn’t quite kicking in yet, and with the pain and the fear and the choking claustrophobia of so many people with so many emotions swirling around all centered on him--he just needs to be alone. To sleep, probably. Maybe to cry. He can’t quite say. But what he does know is that he is done with speaking.

Hannibal seems to understand, and when the EMTs approach with a stretcher, he waves them away. Jack looks livid, and storms over; Will just wraps his arms more tightly around himself, feeling the warmth of infection seeping through the bandages over his rib cage and trying to stave off the shivers while Hannibal stands, placing himself between Jack and Will. He’s not a large man, Will thinks, gazing up at his silhouette with his open eye--the other, they determined, wouldn’t open, swollen and black as it is, that whole side of his face mottled with bruising. Yet the way he holds himself, barring Jack’s way, speaking with quiet authority and a physique and a stance that seems to prove he can back it up, makes him seem larger and more imposing. They argue, quietly, for a few minutes; then Alana comes up, places a hand on Jack’s arm. He looks mollified as she speaks softly, and they all turn, briefly, to look at him. He ducks his head, stares at his feet. They are bare, and bruised, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to stand given the black and purple marks all over the soles. His captor was not kind.

Jack nods stiffly, and stalks away. Alana and Hannibal confer quietly between themselves for a moment more; then she, too, leaves, followed momentarily by the ambulance. Soon only the forensic crew is left; they, and Will and Hannibal.

Hannibal crouches down in front of Will and he focuses on the doctor. He looks the part, now, less psychiatrist than surgeon, sleeves pushed to his elbows, blue nitrile gloves covering his hands. His sleeves and his shirt are stained with blood. Will stares, and feels sick again. “Will,” Hannibal says, and his voice is coming from far away. The blood is thundering in Will’s ears; then Hannibal puts his hand on Will’s cheek, thumb caressing his un-bruised cheekbone, and it fades away to a dull, distant roar. He meets Hannibals eyes--eye--with his one good one, and nods stiffly. “I’m taking you home.”

Will nods, and tries to stand, but his legs are rubber and his feet are, _Jesus, are they actually on fucking fire_ , they’re painful. He stumbles, but Hannibal is there. The stitches over his ribs open up, but Hannibal keeps him upright. “Can you walk?”

Will turns his head, looks up at Hannibal, and shakes his head mutely. He’s unwilling to break this silence; his throat hurts, his head hurts, his soul is in fucking agony. Hannibal just nods and, without seeming to break his stride at all, bends to lift Will’s knees in one arm, the other going around his shoulders. Will can’t even find it in himself to be mortified. The pain fades from his aching feet, and Hannibal is warm and safe and protective. There isn’t really anywhere on his body that doesn’t hurt, but the surprisingly strong doctor is gentle and careful as he walks them to his own vehicle, gently depositing and arranging Will across the back seat.

Will is asleep before they leave the parking lot, the strains of some classical composer he can’t name--violin, cello, the rumble of a timpani and the soft descant of a soprano--ringing in his ears. It sounds...familiar, but he is asleep before the fear and the bile can rise in his throat, and he won't remember it when he wakes up. 

****  
  



End file.
